Russia’s Imports Ban Inflicts Damage on US Food Producers

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The year-long food imports ban introduced by Russia in response to Western economic sanctions has had a negative impact on US food producers, while at the same time increasing Russia’s share of the global grain market, Moscow’s trade representative in the United States Alexander Stadnik said.

“The analysts of the International Grains Council (IGC) expect that the shares of Russia and the United States of the global grain market will go through a minor redistribution in Russia’s favor in the marketing year of 2014/15: from 8 percent and 28 percent in the season of 2013/14 to 10 and 25 percent respectively,” Stadnik told RIA Novosti.

According to the Russian trade representative, it is clear that US food manufacturers were hurt by Russia’s import ban, particularly as the United States saw record harvests of sugar beets, corn and soybeans in 2014.

Stadnik also refuted US allegations that Russia’s food imports ban has had no negative impact on US poultry production.

“Russia was the second largest market for US chicken meat exports: last year, according to US data, [US] chicken meat exports to Russia amounted to $309 million or 7 percent of the total US exports in this commodity group,” the Russian trade representative said.

Following Crimea's reunification with Russia and the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict, the United States, the European Union and their allies accused Moscow of alleged meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs and imposed several rounds of sanctions to weaken Russian economy.

In response to the restrictive measures, in August 2014 Moscow introduced a year-long food import ban on countries that imposed anti-Russia sanctions.